What is the function of zinc finger nucleases?

Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) are a class of engineered DNA-binding proteins that facilitate targeted editing of the genome by creating double-strand breaks in DNA at user-specified locations.

What is zinc finger nuclease?

Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) are engineered restriction enzymes designed to target specific DNA sequences within the genome. Assembly of zinc finger DNA-binding domain to a DNA-cleavage domain enables the enzyme machinery to target unique locus in the genome and invoke endogenous DNA repair mechanisms.

How zinc finger domains can be used to develop gene editing technologies?

Zinc finger domains can be engineered to target specific desired DNA sequences and this enables zinc-finger nucleases to target unique sequences within complex genomes. By taking advantage of endogenous DNA repair machinery, these reagents can be used to precisely alter the genomes of higher organisms.

What are Zfn and Talen?

Zinc-finger nickases are ZFNs that contain inactivating mutations in one of the two FokI cleavage domains. ZFNickases make only single-strand DNA breaks and induce HDR without activating the mutagenic NHEJ pathway.

How is a zinc finger nuclease ( ZFN ) created?

Zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs) are artificial restriction enzymes generated by fusing a zinc-finger DNA-binding domain to a DNA cleavage domain (Porteus and Carroll, 2005). D.R. Ede, R.D. Bowles, in Comprehensive Biomaterials II, 2017

How are three zinc fingers bound to DNA?

The crystal structure of the mouse Zif268 three zinc finger peptide bound to its target DNA sequence showed that the individual zinc fingers fold into two antiparallel β sheets and an α helix, with the α helix making sequence specific DNA contacts in the major grove of the DNA [ 2 ].

Which is the nuclease domain of ZFN architec-Ture?

The ZFN architec- ture (FIG. 1a)meets these specifications by linking the DNA-binding domain of a versatile class of eukaryo- tic transcription factors — zinc finger proteins (ZFPs) — with the nuclease domain of the FokI restriction enzyme.

Can a zinc finger nuclease be used to treat HIV?

Zinc finger nucleases have also been used in a mouse model of haemophilia and a clinical trial found CD4+ human T-cells with the CCR5 gene disrupted by zinc finger nucleases to be safe as a potential treatment for HIV/AIDS.